Processing techniques and facilities which enable widespread use of molded thermoplastic composite components at production rates and production costs and that allow significant weight savings scenarios may be desirable in some applications. The capability to rapidly heat, consolidate and cool in a controlled manner may be required for high production rates of composite components. Current processing techniques include the use of heated dies, and therefore, may not allow for the optimum controlled cool-down which may be required for optimum fabrication. Furthermore, current processing techniques may have limitations in forming the desired components since such techniques have limitations in the capability to hold the dimensions of the component accurately or maintain the composite in a fully consolidated state and may not optimize performance of the current resin systems.
Superplastic forming and hot forming methods for fabricating aluminum and to some extent magnesium components may be hampered by the inability to effectively integrate the superplastic forming process with the heat treatment requirements. The savings produced by the excellent formability at SPF temperatures may be nullified by the loss of dimensional control due to the need to solution-treat and quench the component after superplastic forming to produce competitive strength characteristics.
The lower strength of non-heat treatable alloys may be a significant contributing factor mainly as to why there has not been widespread implementation of the SPF of aluminum components in the aerospace industry. Moreover, the long cycles and low strength of characteristic of the current process may be deterrents to using the SPF of aluminum and magnesium in the automotive industry.
When inductively heating complex geometry smart susceptors, the magnetic field produced by the induction coil may tend to hug the back surface of the smart susceptor. When the susceptor becomes nonmagnetic at the Curie Point of the ferromagnetic material making up the susceptor, there may be a significant reduction in energy input into the susceptor. This may be especially true when the magnetic field is parallel to the plane of the susceptor. The magnetic field may have a tendency to straighten out and not hug the back surface of the smart susceptor when the smart susceptor is nonmagnetic. This may cause issues for complex geometry susceptors as the field penetrates through the susceptor thickness. The reduction in efficiency may not be as dramatic when the magnetic field is not parallel to the plane of the susceptor. Therefore, the more dramatic the complexity of the smart susceptor, the more chances for areas that do not stop heating abruptly at the Curie Point.
Therefore, a laminated tooling apparatus with smart susceptors which enables control of temperature during induction heating of complex components regardless of whether the magnetic field produced by the induction coil is running parallel or perpendicular to the back surface of the susceptor is needed.